Boy Gautama

By Jason Elfert

So have the stories long been told to those who delight in hearing of the Gracious One:
That he is at this time a young man living at the palace of his noble family outside the city of Kapilavastu, at the foot of the Himalaya to the cold north—stories long told that he was a gifted young man, but troubled by demands of duty and dynasty, puzzled, too, by a calling to a purpose he cannot yet name...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason Elfert
• Release date: Aug 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463153772

Book preview

BOY GAUTAMA

A NOVEL by

JASON ELFERT

BOY GAUTAMA

By Jason Elfert

Copyright 2018 Jason Elfert

Smashwords Edition

So have the stories long been told by those who delight in speaking of the Gracious One:

That he is at this time a young man living and studying at the great palace built by his noble family outside the city of Kapilavastu, capital of the Sakya Republic, at the foot of the towering Himalaya to the cold north—stories long told that he was in all ways an exceptional child, then a gifted young man, but troubled by unwelcome demands of duty and dynasty, and puzzled, too, by a calling—to a purpose he cannot yet name…

TABLE of CONTENTS

Chapter One- where, on the eve of his fifteenth birth anniversary, the boy Gautama, perched in the Ashwattha tree, awaits his father, the magnificent Suddhodana, revered ruler of the Sakya clan of warriors, expected to return today from battle in the provinces to attend celebrations marking the prince’s birth anniversary.

Chapter Two- with his Aunt Pajapati, wife to his father, as she shares disappointing news with the young prince Gautama. The story of the competition for his cousin Yasodhara’s hand in marriage.

Chapter Three- in which Siddhatta’s Aunt Pajapati asks the prince to minister to the stable boy Pranay, sick with grief over his grandfather’s death.

Chapter Four- where he and his aunt journey to her natal home, the palace at Devadaha, and the prince hears in detail of his mother, the Queen Maha Maya: of her childhood, and her engagement to King Suddhodana.

Chapter Five- continuing on their way, the boy Gautama learns much of his father’s difficulties with the great responsibilities of a ruler. The story of the prince’s birth at the Sal grove at Lumbini and the horrors of his mother’s death in childbirth.

Chapter Six- in which the boy and his aunt attend an Execution by Tables, ordered by his Aunt Pajapati’s father, the King of the Koliya clan, and the young prince’s growing impatience and revulsion at the brutality of governance.

Chapter Seven- in which the boy meets his trusted, close companion, the great stallion Kanthaka, saving the great horse from the slaughterhouse.

Chapter Eight- The arrival of the boy Gautama’s tutor, Visvamitra, and his daughter Sharmilla, and their first lessons in cartography and the prince’s first introduction to matters of dualism.

Chapter Nine- in which the teacher Visvamitra and his student further discuss language, time, and dualism.

Chapter Ten- as the prince and his step-mother, the Queen Pajapati, discuss language and the important purpose of meditation in quieting the mind.

Chapter Eleven- where the boy Gautama learns of the engagement arranged for him to the Princess Yasodhara, and of the king’s plans to remove the boy to three palaces of his own; and of the king’s gift to his son of his own courtesan, the woman Vasanta, to prepare the boy in the ways of marriage. The prince learns more of his father’s and mother’s engagement, and of his father’s erratic and fearful behaviors.

Chapter Twelve- where, at the annual Ploughing Festival Siddhatta has a contentious encounter with his cousin, the Prince Devadatta, over the fate of an injured swan.

Chapter Thirteen- The prince spends an afternoon with his future wife, his cousin the Princess Yashodara.

Chapter Fourteen- in which the prince hears something of the lives of his tutor Visvamitra and his daughter Sharmilla before his assignment as Siddhatta’s teacher: their years at the university at Takshashila.

Chapter Fifteen- wherein the Queen Pajapati assigns her driver, Channa, to serve Siddhatta as his personal driver from that day forward. Channa speaks of his life before his time at Kapilavastu.

Chapter Sixteen- when the prince takes a meal with his Aunt Pajapati’s children, the Prince Nanda and his sister, the Princess Sanduri Nanda.

Chapter Seventeen- where the prince spends a brief time in conversation with his father, the King Suddhodana.

Chapter Eighteen- in which Channa introduces the boy Gautama to the demands of driving the battle chariot. The prince learns that his father has ordered him confined to the palace grounds.

Chapter Nineteen- the prince instructs a few of the young children living at the palace in basic meditation, and then takes them on an outing to the Sala grove at Lumbini. The encounter with three travelers, one elderly, a second gravely ill, the two preparing to bury a third, recently dead; and Siddhatta’s encounter with the Jain monk Jigar.

Chapter Twenty- with the monk Jigar, and some lessons on kamma and impermanence.

Chapter Twenty-One- wherein the boy Gautama is given a courtesan, the king’s favorite, the woman Vasanta. The prince finds himself troubled, questioning his destiny and duty to the clan.

Chapter Twenty-Two- and the boy Gautama considers leaving the palace in favor of a life of homelessness.

Chapter Twenty-Three- in which the prince is paid a visit by Jigar and the Jain monks and nuns.

Chapter Twenty-Four- Siddhatta spends an afternoon in discussion with his friend and driver Channa.

Chapter Twenty-Five- The prince spends an afternoon with his friend and confident, Sharmilla, and shares with her his decision to quit the palace and embark on the life of a mendicant.

Chapter Twenty-Six- in which the boy Gautama arranges with Channa to leave the palace and begin a life of homelessness. The Going Forth.

Chapter Twenty-Seven- Dukkha. The prince, at home once again, reflects on suffering, the world’s and his own.

-ONE-

Makkata

On awaking, with night still a vivid, starlit black—hours before any traces of dawn or birdsong, before even the arrival of his cooks—the boy left his bed. The possibility of being allowed an audience with his father in a few hours so preoccupied him that sleep was impossible, and he gave up trying.

Freeing himself from the tossed and turned disarray of his silk bedding, his feet found their straw slippers. He parted the heavy drapes at the bedroom’s entrance and slipped out, careful not to disturb his snoring guard’s sound sleep.

Once outside in the night air, he soon reached the far border of the dew-damp palace lawn, and leaving his slippers and upper robe on the ground, climbed the great Ashwattha to stretch out on his favorite high lateral limb, and with his palm open under the press of his cheek, closed his eyes and waited for his father, the king.

Soon, a first gleam of sun pierced the green translucence of ten thousand leaves lobed and fluttering all around, and the boy heard in the distance down and away, the measured rhythm of procession bells and drums, and the hail of the lead elephant’s trumpet call.

Father!

He quickly sat himself up. To the tree creatures–the monkeys flying limb to limb, and the perched birds feathered in reds and yellows, the boy, sunlight at his back, appeared a luminous figure, haloed in a surround of radiant gold.

His tree drops cool shade onto the paths sloping down and away from the marble-skirted palace, the pebbled paths swept daily at dawn by the kitchen women. Outside the Ashwattha’s branches, its canopy reaching out and over the pond where swans have paused to splash and play, soft blue skies swaddle the whole of the world. Content among the always restless leaves, he knows the tree’s tender strength, and in its reaching for sky and sunlight, knows a kindred soul. He belongs here among its stout limbs. He is safe here atop its broad shoulders.

His back against the trunk, his ankles use a perfect fork in the limb to steady him in place. Here now, he is one with the tree and the trunk, one with the spread of the tree, its limbs and leaves rooted to the light and air, roots digging down like branches, holding the tree fast, feeding the tree while reaching down to entwine the neighboring trees’ roots, and so on, deep into a great hidden, underground community of roots—a society of roots entangled and indistinguishable as belonging to any individual tree or bush, all in wild, perfect mix, communities within communities, reaching out, crawling as one inseparable throng of common thirsts and common imperatives, not ending anywhere, only diving deeper then deeper yet. He belongs to this community. Everywhere the roots find each other and bind together into one great moment.

When his ear meets the bark of the limb he can hear the sounds of all the world as they travel and widen up through the tree: he can hear the whole of the world turning like a wheel, a turning ball of soil and rock, hardening and resolving to a core. And the boy can hear, too, the breeze finding each individual leaf, then urging whole branches, whole limbs, whole trees then whole forests of trees that collect the breezes and bow in waves to all above and around. He hears the earth and the leaves and the blood rush of his own ears and it is one great, glorious sound, and in this way, he knows and touches the world. Some, it is said–those who intend to live with purity of heart towards others–may hear the Ashwattha speak.

At the elephant’s call he stands to climb, and finds a lookout from a limb in a tall neighboring pine. The king has been away for weeks, visiting relatives to the west, then making his inspections of the sorghum fields and stores to the north.

And he is now returned! The grand caravan has come into view, at last and as promised—in time to celebrate his birth anniversary, the prince about to turn fourteen years of age.

First to appear, the elephants, lumbering tail to trunk to tail dressed in military finery, proud battle elephants trained to trample and protect; then a cadre of guards on horseback, proud animals with proud riders also in ceremonial dress; then the palanquin carrying his aunt, the queen, and her children, the prince's cousins, the vehicle painted in reds and yellows with scrolled and gilded trim. Her attendants walk alongside, where, finally, two more battle elephants follow to answer any assault from the rear.

What he cannot see is his father’s grand chariot, or the palanquin if he has chosen to travel so.

Perhaps his father has waited to leave at a later time, unavoidably delayed: something of importance has delayed the king’s arrival. Where is he? Surely he would put aside any of his duties to visit on an occasion such as this…

He longed to visit with his father. He wanted to hear of his father’s own years as a prince, waiting to assume his own leadership of the Sakya. And if there was time he would show his father his skills with bow and arrow from galloping horseback, then demonstrate his new skills with quill and ink.

And ask the noble king: what were his interests as a boy? Were his days as a little boy like those of the prince’s: uninterrupted days at play, servants hovering, ready to find and fetch any plaything, delivering it promptly to his lap—wagons and forest animals fashioned of teak, ivory and gold—scattered about in every room. And when outside, guardians walked alongside to assure that no stone disturbed his step down the paths, the ever-present sunshade in the hands of his servants, assuring that no harsh sunlight intrudes, nor cold, dust, dirt or dew sully the air he breathed. And as he grew, days of reading and conversation with his aunt or his tutors on his private terraces, or at the banks of his lotus ponds filled his days. He would ask his father: did he, the king, know such a childhood?

Who were his teachers and what were his curiosities? Did he take pleasure, like the prince, in learning of minerals and birds and plants? What did it please him most to study? What had he learned of distant places and peoples, of Persia, Athens?

And what of my mother? How did you come to choose her? And my Aunt Mahapajapati—how did you come to marry these sisters?

Or, if it did not please the king to discuss such things, the prince could, perhaps, accompany the king on his tours of the foundries and stables. He had seen the stable workers hurriedly preparing for such an inspection: the horses, the elephants, even the strongest of the oxen bathed and manicured, caparisons cleaned and mended; silver cinches and ornaments brought to high shine, ornate horn and bone bridals arranged for display, birda nests toppled from rafters, stalls scrubbed and floored with new straw, and the wettest of the entryway muds and puddles planked and graveled.

Or he could companion the king while he met with the council leaders for discussions. Of the Sakya warlords and ambassadors so convened for the santhagara, his father was the most powerful: the ruler richest in arable lands and timber lands, in ownership of the most elephants battle-trained to trample and break a horse’s back, or work-trained to haul trees or blocks of sandstone and marble out of the quarries; his father, King Suddhodana, the individual richest in iron bloomeries, and barges, and oxen, sheep, goats, and courtesans; the one most cunning in strategy both mercantile and military, the one whose vast standing armies were unassailable; the one with the strongest heirs to power and the most beautiful heiresses to be traded into alliances; the warlord most respected by his farming tenants who knew to promptly pay their tax—of these here assembled, each a leader of his own formidable clan, none rivaled his father, the great King Suddhodana.

The caravan had disappeared from his view as it continued up the steep, switching road, climbing in slow procession towards the palace.

Certainly, the king would arrive next. The prince, his hopes holding him fast to his perch, surveyed the road to and from the north gate for any glimpse of another caravan.

But soon, with his fatigue calling him to rest and perhaps doze, he left the tall pine and climbed back down to the Ashwattha, his hopes of seeing the king this morning slipping away and no longer chasing away sleep.

With the passing hours, the morning warmed and brightened. Awake now, the heat of the day gathering even in the shade and shadows, the prince noticed from his place among the leaves, his aunt, stepping from the terraces to the paths. With her daughter, the prince’s half-sister and cousin Sundari Rupa at her side, he watched as the two headed directly toward him, knowing with certainty where to find him: climbing what they knew to be his favorite of the trees. She must set a matter of immediate importance before the prince.

Had she, or anyone, made inquiry as to why he chose this Ashwattha as a favorite retreat, he might have explained that it pleased him not only for its ample hidden perches, and not only because so many wild birds and crazy monkeys played there, but most importantly: his memories of visiting this tree with his father, the king, on fine days like this, as a very young child.

They would take their rest at the base of the tree prepared quickly with pillows and rugs, the ground already blanketed with dried tan leaves and fallen ripe fruit. There, his father spoke to him of the days when he too sat, right here, visiting with his own father, the king, and spoke to his son of serious, adult matters: governance and commerce, duty and succession.

His aunt and her daughter, with their ever-present attendants, wound their way down to the Ashwattha tree. So adept and skilled was he at climbing any and every tree bordering the lawns that his aunt teased him with the nickname Makkata—called him a climbing ‘monkey.’ The prince had shed his day garments to climb dressed only in his canvas tunic, more than enough clothing for this already hot morning of late spring. He knew his way up and down, high and low, indeed as well as the monkeys scampering from limb to branch, tree to tree, laughing their chattering laugh. He laughed too—at the monkeys’ skillful acrobatics, laughed at their missteps and quick recoveries, laughed at their loud bickering and the gestures of tenderness between the pairs.

His aunt followed the chirp of his laugh.

Makkata, come down please, called his Aunt Prajapati. Please my darling, I want you to come down at once.

The prince jumped easily from well above these two, landing at his aunt’s side. What is it, Matuccha? asked the prince, welcoming the queen with a kiss to her cheek. Where is my father? I did not see his palanquin or coach when you arrived.

Yes, Makkata—please— come and meet me at the baths in one hour and I will tell you of your father’s plans. There is much I have to discuss with you.

-TWO-

With His Aunt,

the Noble Queen Pajapati

Were you among the queen’s attendants at the entrance to the baths, and privy to the sights and scents of the steam-clouded room, open wide to the near woods, air perfumed with sandalwood, the deep bathwater of the wooden cistern surrounded with tall hammered-brass vases of cut stems in arrangements of glowing reds, soothing purples, radiant yellows— splendid as the train of the peacock working the dirt floor for a bug or crumb—you might, discreetly, from the corner of your eye, glimpse the stir of limbs all about the cistern, you and the other attendants at the ready to ladle full fresh hot water and bath salts, ready with soaps and towels. You might regard with pleasure their perfect skins, tones of deep tans with an underglow of auburn, their bodies nearly identical in shade as if sharing one skin. They are born to clans of kindred origin, warrior clans of the formidable and ancient Ikshvaku dynasty, clans that have intermarried for generations, sharing now a roundness of face, an upward pinch to their eyelids, and straight, night-black hair. She bathes with him in the waters of the cistern and they seem as one: limbs among glistening limbs, slopes of shoulder, slopes of breasts, islands of knees; hands and forearms dipping and surfacing.

Of his father’s wives and courtesans, this queen, youngest sister of the prince’s mother, dead now fourteen years, is known for a radiance that only jewels and stars and precious ores might rival, a radiance of such a power that the king’s fiercest fighter is helpless to tear away his gaze when in her presence, the radiant field about her alluring and daunting.

These two share beauty of feature: in long lashes above a dark sparkle of brown eyes; a fairness and sweet clarity to their smooth skins the tan of fallen acorns, lips of a delicate red poised to speak and also ready to not speak, ready to shape to a smile and also ready to not shape to a smile; lips ready to part and breathe softly, to breathe in, to breathe out.

As an infant, the young prince had fed at her breast, while ßher own children, the prince’s cousins, were instead handed over to wet nurses. She has told him this: that her devotion to him is not an aunt’s or proxy mother’s, but that of a guardian and protector of a flame, a flame poised, as she had put it, to light the lamps of all the world. He has made no sense of such proclamations though he has heard many people speak in such terms, but whatever they are talking about, the words are spoken with affection and excitement, and he does not mind.

And soon he will see his father, speak with him and walk at his side. He has not seen his father since the annual ploughing festival many months ago. How perfect it was to ride through the rice and tamarind fields, to stand beside the king as he steered the plough behind the silk-draped oxen, their horns tipped with gold, new furrows fresh behind them and to either side a hundred more working teams, his father driving, standing strong, magnificent, at the reins of the toiling oxen.

His aunt brought her cupped hands of water to her face, the water both warming and cooling. She waved off a servant approaching to wash her back. She spoke to the boy across the cistern in this way:

Makkata, my darling, I have word from your noble father.

"This morning, upon my return to the palace, I discovered a folio of messages waiting from my husband, the king.

Having read the scrolled cloth, Pajapati considered the matters of the king’s message carefully before any mention of their contents, hoping to make reference to the message in a manner that might soften their effect on the prince.

Makkata. Your father will not be able to visit with you this year on the anniversary of your birth. Important matters call and he must remain away. He writes of skirmishes at the toll station below the winter pass. Bandits have attempted to overpower the guards and loot the station of its stores and monies. He has taken a full company to settle the dispute. He is, however, sending many fine gifts. I am certain they will please you greatly, my darling.

The prince said nothing, only listened and heard—time with his father, apparently, of no importance to anyone but himself.

Practiced at keeping such disappointment to himself, he asked, What more has my father sent in the way of directions, aunt?

Anticipating the boy’s disappointment, his aunt planned to postpone other of the king’s directions for discussion at a later date, but changed her mind and went to the heart of the concerns mentioned in the scroll.

Makkata, your father has formalized an understanding with the Kolia king that you are to marry his daughter, your cousin Yasodhara, when both of you have attained your sixteenth years. Announcement of the engagement will be made on the eve of the first full summer moon.

Though unexpected on this particular morning, there was little surprise in this latest directive from his father. This marriage had been assumed since they were children, since their earliest childhoods as playmates at family gatherings, companions at the childrens’ table at feasts. As they grew she would tease him, call him husband, playing with the notion of becoming his queen. He found no amusement in the teasing at that time and the recollections brought about by the announcement today gave him no pleasure. As puzzling and vague as his future seemed, marriage was never a welcome possibility. To all others his future had been decided from before his birth: he will marry, lead his clan of Sakya warriors, and prepare a son of his own to do the same. This future remained indisputable, inevitable.

His cousin Yasodhara had been pursued by more than a few amorous cousins. But for her part—she insisted—she would have only Prince Siddhatta for her husband. Her father was skeptical of such a pairing, the often withdrawn prince with a reputation for introspection and seriousness, but never for courage or bravery or the requisite ruthlessness in battle. But her father had more substantial considerations than the prince’s temperament: the combining of the clans’ properties would mean considerable commercial gain for the Koliya; the two families’ combined resources and markets would allow them to swallow lesser private holdings at their borders and assume market dominance, effectively hobbling, then eliminating the lesser competitors. Even Yasodhara’s brother Devadatta found the commercial prospects of such a union irresistible, despite his irritation at the mention of Siddhatta’s name. Still, custom demanded a contest.

Siddhatta, out of respect for the girl’s father, had agreed to attend the swayamvara to vie for her hand. Privately, he suggested to his aunt’s driver Channa, and only half in jest, that he could easily lose the competitions intentionally and take himself out of the running, though it would take more skill for him to lose than win.

But the prospect of disgracing, even angering his father eclipsed any other consideration. He dreaded falling from his father’s favor. He felt himself immobilized. He must live his own truth, and he dare not. Duty was paramount. He must marry and provide an heir as had all kings for generations.

The thought of such a life made him dizzy, short of breath, as if being smothered and choked. This prospect, of marriage, could suddenly darken any moment. He could not take a stand, and his weakness embarrassed him, angered him, grieved him.

Though deeply reluctant, Siddhattha had agreed to compete.

An auspicious day was chosen: the marriage anniversary of Yasodhara’s parents, with word carried to all the families of the Sakya clan—send your sons. Let the finest among them compete for the Princess Yasodhara’s hand.

Strong young men all, the group of cousins gathered, bathed, and were dressed by their servants in splendid battle gear. Their sisters and younger cousins, their parents, their aunts and uncles, beaming and anxious for their sons, gathered at the field’s perimeter of palanquins and coaches, each with shading canopies and smoking firepits. The swayamvara would begin at noon.

Siddhatta, accompanied by his aunt’s driver Channa and the stable master tending the fine stallion Agni, and having seen the others in practice many times over the years, knew himself to be the most talented in every event. That he would prevail was of no doubt. Fighting disinterest, he waited for the events to begin. What did capture his attention was the presence of his cousin Devadhatta, with horse and groom, waiting to compete.

That’s odd, is it not, Channa. Marrying one’s sister is not considered even remotely possible. It is taboo among every branch of the Ikshvaku, unheard of in any warrior clan of the dynasty. What is he doing?

Channa answered him in a confidential manner, lowering his voice and speaking to the prince’s ear only. I have heard that he begged his parents for permission to compete. That he believes he will prevail and have the priests grant a dispensation and allow the king to grant him this boon. He is, I hear tell, as unshakeable as he is deluded on this matter. As with much of your cousin Devadhatta’s behavior over the years, it is tolerated, then ignored.

Devadhatta, his father announced moments before the competition began, would not compete after all, his horse having come up lame.

Siddhatta startled all in attendance: with his humility, with his skills unequalled in archery, swordplay and horse riding. He was clearly the superior competitor and suitor, and on that day, as was customary, he had also brought the princess creations of his own hands: ornaments for her belts that he had fashioned of leathers and precious beads. Prince Siddhatta, having sent the competing cousins home, defeated and empty-handed, left Yasodhara’s father little choice but to name Siddhatta the winner of his daughter’s hand.

So did the prince recall the events preceding his engagement. Servants refreshed the now cooling bath with new hot waters and salts, and brought tea.

Now his Aunt Pajapati spoke to the prince in this way:

You have spoken for days of your father’s visit, Makkata, so I can imagine your disappointment. I can only remind you that this is the way things are for you as well as my other children and myself. We, the family of the ruler must defer to his many duties outside our immediate family: his duties to the clan, to his other wives, to the armies and to the alliances. This has always been so and should be taken as circumstance that is true, and your experience of the king’s decisions should be true to these facts of his duties and not true to your wishes or disappointments.

Then, the prince’s aunt, wife to his father, spoke with these words of fathers and sons:

"Man, born of man, begins this life as a son, and we may say of any such a son that from birth he longs for his father, as his father, himself a son, longed for his own father—and so through the generations. So it is, Makkata, a truth, law-conforming in the world.

"When we speak of a man and his father we speak of all men and their fathers. When we speak of a man and his son, we speak of all men and all sons.

"So, too, a father visits his longings and hopes onto his son. A father wants for a son all that he wants for himself, and in many fold. For his son, to whom he breathed life, a father longs to give the whole of the world.

"So, too, a son longs for his father: longs to know through him the glory and mystery of the world. A man longs to have his father as teacher and mentor— as source.

"He longs to follow a path with his father as his compass and map. He longs to understand all that his father understands. He longs to be in orbit around his father as a planet around the sun, and this is true of that son who is of a lowly birth or noble birth, of base birth or excellent birth. His is a longing to join his father in the world of men.

"And in this way it is everywhere known that a son longs for his father.

"So, too, is it everywhere known that a father is often or always absent. Away.

"Every son finds a longing for a father that, in many cases, must go unmet. Because fathers take to the world and are absent, unavailable. This news today from your father is a lesson in such a truth.

The home is not the domain of the father; he is charged with conquering the world. That is his domain, his challenge and concern. When he is thus absent from home and family, in mind or body; when his interest is elsewhere or is spent elsewhere, then will a son be left with a longing that will be with him always, Makkata. Much the same can be said of his daughters as well. It is the same and it is different. Your mother and I were daughters of such a man, and suffered his absences and preoccupations with much sadness and longing.

Please, aunt, please continue.

"From his father may a son perceive the world as safe, or threatening—as welcoming, or hostile.

"As a son will honor his father, he craves his father’s honoring of the man he wishes to become. If his father turns a blind eye to what his son has become or longs to become—turns away from his son’s own view of his destiny, then he leaves that son alone, grieving, and weak with distress. Increasingly, you will encounter these truths, Makkata. In these truths some men discover great disquiet.

These are laws that govern affairs between fathers and sons. Even the most extraordinary of sons, the most gifted and generous of sons, the most creative sons destined for profound, even god-like greatness, and here I speak of you, esteemed prince—these men's lives must conform to these laws.

The prince considered these previously unheard things with great interest.

"When you were born, at your father’s summons, the seers offered their visions of what the future might hold for a boy born to circumstances such as yours. The seers, each acquainted with your father's dark moods, cautious lest they upset him, told of great things for your future: that you would rule all continents, or, should the fates command, become a great teacher: a teacher of teachers. At this, all the palace heard him bellow, 'A teacher? Never will I permit a son to become a teacher when his rightful place is at the command of the Sakya!—he is born to lead, conquer, command and rule. I will never allow it!' Then, 'Come back to me with prophecy that affirms his duty or do not show yourselves here again!' The seers hurried away and did not return.

Know this now, Makkata: that these many things that you hear from your father—his expectations of you— all these things—he heard from his own father. So great was your father’s need to answer to his father’s expectations that he came to this life of duty without question. And even having done so, he could never satisfy the longing for his father’s favor, could never conquer his craving for his father’s approval. And it is true to this day, Makkata: his duty to his father, long dead, orders everything he demands of you. He knows only duty and submission, and expects exactly that and only that from you.

And the prince said to his aunt, Thank you, aunt. There is much here for me to consider.

-THREE-

Pranay

He woke early and walked alone for most of the following day. Talk of a wedding disturbed him, invaded his thoughts against his will. A householder’s life approached, uninvited, bearing down on him, leaving him feeling powerless and distressed.

The hot sun lowered towards evening. Fragrances revealed themselves in the cooling airs and waning light: lilac, lavender, dry grasses from the stores—the natural world, the outdoors, outside the walls of the dusty palace, pleased him greatly on this evening.

Returning from his walk, he joined his aunt on the terrace outside his rooms.

Makkata, I have been waiting for your return. Your attentions are needed at the kitchens. It is one of the kitchen workers’ sons, Makkata, the boy Pranay. The little boy is unwell, in distress, not eating or sleeping. The cook asks if you would come and share tea and comfort him, and I have promised her that you would.

A child of royalty on both his father’s and aunt’s sides, already familiar with a life of duty, the prince dressed quickly. He knew many of the kitchen people and laundry workers and was concerned with their welfare. He had often been asked and happily answered calls from servants, even slaves, for a personal visit, having created something of a reputation as a boy with special gifts for compassion, even healing. He often accompanied his aunt to visit those in distress and felt not only privileged, but chosen to do so. As far as he could tell, this calling was the most important part of a life to one born to his advantages: the most fulfilling, the most sensible, valuable, conscionable part of his life. All the rest—the extravagance and luxury, the overwhelming and plundering of enemies—those were meaningless to the prince, irrelevant to living a life of value.

It will be as you ask, dear aunt. I will visit the little boy and share tea that they may no longer know distress, that he may eat and sleep soundly once again.

The prince took his aunt’s arm and she led the way uphill, joining the paths leading off to the west, past the buildings that housed the new iron works and its crucibles for fashioning tack and weaponry, also the laundries, buildings where immense pots of waters simmered, these buildings housing all and any labors involving wood fire. Tall brick chimneys let smoke to lean with the breezes coursing down from the distant, cloud-skirted Himavat.

They arrived at the cooks’ quarters behind the kitchens. The cook knelt and kissed the palm of the prince’s hand.

Thank you for visiting us, master. My son has not been himself. He has been greatly distressed at the death of his grandfather, now over a month ago. My father was an old man. He became sick and did not become well and died. I had seen this many, many times before of course, the death of a close family member, but my son had not. He has been inconsolable. He continues to ask for his grandfather.

The prince gently stroked the anxious mother’s cheek, then placed his hand under her elbow, bringing her to her feet, as he had often seen his aunt do when a citizen knelt before her. He walked to the bedside where the boy, too weak to rise and properly kneel before the prince as he had been taught, too weak even to raise his head, watched as the prince approached.

The prince knelt beside the low frame of the straw sickbed, bringing his hand to the back of the child’s damp, fevered neck. He placed his other palm on the boy’s chest, his palm upon the child's beating heart.

From the far side of the room, the queen and the cook, sitting on bales of straw, watched the prince kneel at the side of the sick boy. The queen took great pride in the prince’s attentions to the sick and his gifts of compassion. His words and composure appeared more like a monk’s or yogi’s than a boy born to royalty. She had recognized from the moment of the prince’s birth: this was a remarkable, a unique young man.

He began his work.

He became the sick boy’s twin. He could twin with any sentient being, man or animal, a practice that his aunt had herself studied as a young woman and introduced to him as a skill to be cultivated. Having twinned with a being, he could know them as himself, become one with their distress, with the causes of their distress and the sensation of distress, and could alleviate their distress with his touch and caring. He looked into the boy’s eyes and behind the boy’s fear and exhaustion, seeking a place empty of experience or thought. He engaged the place: empty of memories, meanings or measures.

As the prince expected, the boy’s mind seemed cluttered and charged with storms, a dense, refracted haze fouling the emptiness. He would infuse it with his own calm, a place in himself he had worked to cultivate as a place of undisturbed clear light. With the boy’s mind and his own so conjoined, the young men breathed together, twinned. The prince could now cause the mind in his charge to admit some clear space, cause the storms to dissipate and allow for an emptiness which was neither with pain nor without pain, neither with peace nor without peace, but simply an empty space.

The prince knew that this young boy suffered from an ignorance: of how the world worked, how all and everything came and went. Perhaps no one had yet taken the time to teach, to explain to the child, some basic truths.

He placed both hands on the young man’s chest and said to him:

"Pranay, your grandfather was an old man. I remember him. When I was a young boy he showed me how to fashion a snare, to hide it and capture peacocks. He was very interested in their behaviors and breeding. He sat me down—I was your age—and told me stories of birds and their magic, and did magic tricks of his own, one with coins that disappeared! I remember his pipe and his laugh, and that he was very kind to me, as I know he was to you, his beloved daughter’s son.

"Pranay—in his old age he became ill and did not get better. Then he died. He left to be someplace where he could rest, where he would stay and not return. You had not seen this before, but perhaps you can remember such a thing happening among the animals. I have seen elephants, goats, sheep and horses, too, become old, and in their old age they became ill and did not recover. And then they died, Pranay.

Pranay listened intently.

When I was six years old, around your age, the prince continued, "I was given my first task—a job at the stables putting down straw for the sheep and goats and refreshing their drinking water. I had begged my aunt to let me do some work around the palace and she arranged for this job with the stable master.

"A sheep had died and was covered and awaiting the building of a pyre where it might respectfully, safely, be removed and destroyed. Sick animals were destroyed in this way to protect the others from possible illness. Some sort of disease had taken